And when you think about it, any one who was on video calling Republicans "assholes" and signing on to a letter demanding a probe of whether the U.S. Government was in on 9/11, you can see why Green Jobs Czar Van Jones probably wouldn't have made it through a Senate confirmation hearing.
But once again, Team Obama shot itself in the foot with bad vetting, somehow letting Jones get a high profile position, and then once he was under attack, not doing much to fight back.
The very best part of this story from my point of view was the White House leaking it at midnight on Saturday night.
That timing insured that it wasn't in the Sunday newspapers, and while it was a part of the talk shows, it will have less impact because of the three day holiday weekend.
While Republicans are certain well within their rights to demand an accounting of the 30-plus "czars" who have been appointed by this White House, it's sort of hard to buy into the thought that their jobs are somehow "unconstitutional" as charged by some GOP lawmakers.
The White House gets a budget - they can spend it on staff however they want. Now, if the Congress wants to outlaw "czars," then a President will probably hire people as "Special Assistants." If you outlaw that, then you can call them "Special Advisers," and so forth.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and argue that the czars really aren't very powerful at all. Think about it - these people have no budgets to speak of. Yes, they might have the ear of people in the White House - but they don't have an army of bureaucrats to do their bidding.
Once again, this episode shows the power of internet on a story that many DC journalists were only starting to pay attention to in recent days.
We'll see now if Republican calls to go after some of the other czars get more traction. They may in the near term, but the danger is that health care and more will drown out the issue.
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